


(WHILE COLLECTING THE STARS) I CONNECTED THE DOTS

by alltheworldsinmyhead



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Adoption, Domestic, F/M, Healing, Mating Bond, Nessian - Freeform, Self-Discovery, Witch!Nesta, found family bc why the fck not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27825871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheworldsinmyhead/pseuds/alltheworldsinmyhead
Summary: or, how Nesta accepted the bond and decided to give living a try
Relationships: Nesta Archeron/Cassian
Comments: 18
Kudos: 65





	(WHILE COLLECTING THE STARS) I CONNECTED THE DOTS

**Author's Note:**

> Title from ''Juniper'' by Sleeping at Last, the opening quote and the whole fic sponsored by ''Welcome Home'' by Radical Face.  
> Tw: brief, non-explicit mentions of sexual abuse. 
> 
> Idk why I keep on writing angsty acotar fics involving children, please forgive me.

> _Heal the scars from off my back_
> 
> _I don't need them anymore_
> 
> _You can throw them out or keep them in your mason jars_
> 
> _I've come home_

* * *

The first thing she notices is how _small_ the girl is.

Her feet are dangling far from the ground and, even though she’s perched on a stroll and Cassian is kneeling on the ground, he’s still towering over her frame. The top of the child’s head barely sticks above the table. Her tucked-in wings make her look even tinier; tiny and miserable, wrapped up in a blanket like an abandoned kitten.

Nesta’s still high on all the magic, still drunk on it. There is dark paint smeared all over her skin. Her veins are buzzing with the sheer power that she and her coven has just leeched off the very bones of Illyria. She’s only starting to regain some composure and maybe that is why, for a good few minutes, she stays on the corridor and watches as Cassian patiently asks the girl if she wants something to eat or to drink, if she’s warm enough, if maybe she wants to take a nap - hearing nothing in return except for the stubborn, shell-shocked silence.

It’s only when the child pulls her knees up and hides her face in the material of the blanket when Nesta actually makes her presence known.

‘’Hello?’’ she calls quietly from her place on a threshold, not wanting to spook the girl further.

To Cassian’s credit, he does not whip his head towards her – but, after all, he probably knew she’s been here all along.

He always knows she’s near, just like she always knows he's near, even if they never talk about it.

‘’Hello, Nesta.’’ He says and there is something so heavy, so terribly dark ringing in his voice that she cannot help but shiver. ‘’Sorry, darling, are you fine sitting alone for a while here? I’ll be right back.’’

He raises his hand as if to pat the girl’s knee, but decides not to half-motion; it falls awkwardly to his side when he slowly raises to his full height.

The girl just buries deeper into the blanket.

Something about her – the clear despair radiating from every pore of her body – pulls Nesta towards her like a siren song. She cannot tear her eyes off her, even when Cassian ushers her to the corridor, his hand burning on her lower back.

‘’Sorry for no heads-up.’’ He whispers, face half-obscured by the shadows.

It’s almost dusk; the lovely pink light of the dying sun makes everything less real somehow. Or maybe it’s still the magic, the leftovers of it from the sabbath, she’s not sure.

She knows why he’s apologizing. Strangers still throw her off, especially here, in this – space they’ve created. Space, where she walks barefoot and with her hair unbound, only for him to see. But how he knows that she doesn’t feel comfortable with unexpected visitors, she has no idea. Sometimes, she wonders how the hell Cassian even knows half of the things he knows about her, because she doesn’t tell him even a quarter of them. 

Unexpected visitors that make her uneasy definitely don’t include little lost girls, though. Especially since there’s an unpleasant pounding in Nesta’s head when her mind starts to mull over why the girl would be here in the first place.

‘’Oh, stop being an idiot. Why did you bring her here? Is she- is her mother-‘’

‘’Gone? Yeah.’’

Nesta closes her eyes so tightly that the whole night sky blooms on the underside of her eyelids.

 _That’s Illyria. –_ he told her the first time when he came home reeking of blood, his knuckles scraped to the raw meat. – _It happens._

And there was not an ounce of acceptance in his voice, only this defeated helplessness. The same helplessness she’s hearing – she’s feeling – now.

‘’She doesn’t have anyone else left? No other family?’’

‘’No one. Her father was killed in the war, as far as I know.’’

 _It happens_. Females disappear. Females evaporate. Females appear with their wings clipped, with blood running down their thighs. Females find themselves in the wrong place, the wrong time… especially young, pretty widows, trying to make a living in any way they can, selling whatever they have, including themselves.

Nesta does not have to ask for more details, does not have to dig deeper. Cassian fixes his stare on the chandelier above her head and breaths deeply and, when she looks down, she can see dark bruises blooming on his knuckles, turning them all shades of purple.

Her hands are still cool from the autumn air. He shivers when her thumbs brush across his tender flesh.

‘’Those who did it to her – they won’t do it again to anyone else, will they?’’

‘’No,’’ Cassian growls, his fingers curling around hers. ‘’No, they won’t.’’

She lets her lips curl into a smile, the one that makes Devlon piss his pants whenever he throws a hissy about her coven, or rather about her _dragging the clipped females to the woods at night to howl to the moon,_ as he calls it.

‘’Good.’’ She breathes out.

Her eyes slide on the wooden panels on the wooden panels, back to the kitchen; through the ajar door, all she can see are the black curls, the small talons on top of the girl’s wings peeking from the folds of the blanket.

She’s just _so small_. She cannot be possibly older than five.

‘’What’s her name?”

“Nicassia.’’ Cassian answers without meeting Nesta’s eyes and something akin to a laugh bubbles in her chest. _Nicassia_. What a pretty name, swishing like a mountain stream on the rocks, like the wind in the valley.

Ni- _cass-ia_.

It seems the irony has not escaped Cassian too, because he smirks slightly at her stunned silence.

‘’What are the chances, huh?’’

‘’Yeah.’’ She sounds a bit breathless. _Nicassia_. ‘’What - where are you planning to take her?’’

She rather feels than hears his hesitance when he says:

‘’Well. There’s an orphanage in Velaris-‘’

Something tightens like a rock inside her core. Of course.

She bites on her tongue. _Stop being ridiculous, Velaris is not the source of all evil in the world._ She has no doubt that they will take care of her well there – keep her well-fed and clothed, educate her. Give her the care and attention she needs. Maybe she’ll be treated as something … something else, different, but not worse, Feyre would never allow that. Still-

There’s this nagging thought, coming back to her over and over again as she raises her eyes to the small bundle of misfortune on the stoll in the kitchen Nesta has started to think of as _hers_ – what about the things they cannot give her in Velaris?

Nesta’s been living in the Illyria for three years now; she keeps count of every day while pretending she’s absolutely not doing that. And during this time, she has just begun to grasp the magnitude of her ignorance of how these people live and how they think and feel – but she also knows now just enough to realize that there will be no coming back for Nicassia if she’s sent to the Night Court so young.

No one will teach her the songs to keep the rhythm while sewing – no one will teach her how to sew in the first place, how to weave the promises and good fortunes into the fabric. No one will teach her the strange language, full of whistles and hard vowels, impossible to really grasp for somebody who did not grow up hearing it every day. No one will teach her how to put pebbles on the windowsills for protection or to hang bundles of herbs above the fireplace for prosperity and health. No one will make a rowan necklace for her upon her flowering, every hope, and dream that her mother has for her captured on the rope along with the fruits.

No one will teach her the sacred, secret language of Illyrian females, the rites and rituals of their womanhood. If Nicassia grows up in Velaris, she will be forever an outcast in her own home. Not High Fae and not quite Illyrian either.

She will one day sit around the fire with other females just like Nesta does with her coven, and she too won’t be a part of the story.

And Nesta cannot _bear_ this thought, cannot help but fixate on it.

‘’Nesta.’’

Cassian’s hand is warm and steady on arm, gentle, when he squeezes it.

He’s always gentle with her now, hesitant almost. She’s trying not to miss the times when he was challenging her with every move, every word, driving her insane. It’s better this way, when everything between them is so delicate, fragile like an eggshell. _It’s better like that,_ she tries to convince herself every day, every night laying alone in her bed, her very skin burning from desire.

Sometimes he sleeps beside her to keep her nightmares at bay, but honestly, she almost prefers the nightmares to this unbearable, painful distance between them. 

‘’You cannot – you can’t keep her, Sweetheart.’’

She knows what he means by that – she knows he means all the sleepless nights and the emptiness still present in her eyes more often than not. Her still too-skinny hands, her still-not-quite mastered powers. How she would not touch booze for all days of the year except for the anniversary of her father’s death when she gets so absolutely pissed that she sleeps through the next week. The fact that they share fears and dreams and silence, trade quiet feelings, small kisses, absent-minded caresses every day, but they have still not traded the actual words, did not dare to voice anything they feel for each other.

She knows he only wants to protect her.

But maybe a time for coddling has passed. Not when there is a child sitting in their kitchen, small and alone in this world and this time, she has power – power, and strength, and will – to help her.

‘’Maybe I can’t’’. she says softly, slowly. Nicassia’s dark curls spill on her shoulders. Nesta’s hands itch to braid it the way it’s supposed to be braided, just like Emerie explained to her one time- first parted in two, then divided into four strands and woven together (Health. Protection. Love. Devotion.). Nesta’s no Illyrian, but she can learn. She can ask her coven to teach her, to teach her how to sing lullabies in Illyrian, which bedtimes stories she should tell-

Ni-cass-ia.

Nesta thinks about a boy of five, dumped onto the cold mud, taught over and over again in the most horrible way that he has to kill, beg or steal for every little crumb of love in his life, that it will never be given freely to him, that he will never be worth it.

Nesta thinks of a girl of eight, burning with anger too vast to be contained, only learning decades later how to be gentle, how to allow others to be gentle to her. She thinks of Feyre and Elain, of loving too much and not enough simultaneously, of not knowing how to feel anything without this magnitude of feeling devouring her whole.

Nesta turns around to face Cassian, her hands gripping his too-strongly. There’s fire – _fire-_ burning inside her brighter than any magic ever did, hotter than any rage ever did.

 _She needs us._ – she thinks and then: _I need this. I want this._

_I want this for us._

She doesn’t remember ever wanting anything more. She doesn’t remember the last time she has felt so much.

How can they continue to pretend they’re walking on eggshells when she feels every rise and fall of his chest as if it was her own? When she could’ve as well grabbed on this bond between them or hang herself on it, that’s how strong it is. Forged from some ancient metal. Hardened in flames.

Cassian kneeling on the floor in front of this girl. Nesta coming home.

‘’But maybe we can.’’

His eyes burn golden, staring down at her. She can almost hear his heart stumbling in his chest. She’s trembling, waiting for him to tell her no, to tell her that’s insane and wrong, to try to reason with her.

But maybe her own heart is painted on her face or maybe the implication of her words are too vast, too great to grasp, or maybe it’s that fact that all her walls go down for a moment when she’s too desperate to keep them up and he sees her for what she truly is for a moment, or maybe it’s all of those things altogether or something else entirely – but Cassian doesn’t say no.

He looks to the kitchen again, his jaw clenching when one of Nicassia’s feet emerge from the blanket to dangle above the floor.

‘’Are you sure?’’

One step, two steps before she’s so close she could’ve counted the freckles of hazel in his eyes.

_Be brave._

_‘’_ I want this with you. I want her. Do you – do you want it too?’’

And she means more than Nicassia, or rather – she means all Nicassia can possibly mean, the whole ocean of dreams she has never dared to venture into, so deep they could both drown in it.

In her grand romance novels, he would’ve pulled her into his arms, give her a sweeping kiss. But in these books, there seems to always be a perfect moment for everything, the exact seconds when stars align and the realization comes like a lightning strike. Nesta does not believe in this type of love anymore- doesn’t believe in the perfect moments. It was always Feyre’s brand of romance. Everything in Nesta’s and Cassian’s story has always been complicated and ill-timed. She doesn’t expect to be swept off her feet or wooed anymore.

She just wants to come home. Finally, after all those lonely years. 

Cassian doesn’t give her a grand kiss. Instead, he raises their linked hands to his lips and whispers against her skin – quietly, like a secret, like an oath:

‘’I do. Fine then, love.’’

And for a second she can almost see that small boy entering Rhysand’s mother’s cottage in the war camp, craving family and belonging above all reason once again.

Her body turns soft, jelly; her arm raises up, palm resting in the crook of his neck, thumb brushing the line of his jaw. She’s on her tiptoes before she realizes she has even made a move.

For the first time since they met, they meet each other halfway; his forehead resting on hers, his hand pressing hers to his heart.

‘’Fine then, love.’’ She echoes and, all at once, warmth erupts under her skin like a raging forest fire when the bond tugs on her insides and _snaps_ in place, sweet and familiar, the gravity keeping her feet on the ground. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you're wondering if I stole Nicassia's name from Holly Black's The Folk of The Air series... yes I absolutely did, the temptation was too strong and the name too perfect. If you are interested in reading more about Nesta and Cassian in this specific au, please let me know, I have a ton of ideas! Domestic fluff is my shit.  
> Also, please leave me a comment. Please. You have no idea how much it means for me to hear that someone enjoyed my work. Fanfiction writers depend on the comments in order to gather any kind of courage to keep pursuing writing - especially adult fanfiction writers like me, who need confirmation that what they're doing is worth actually ditching work and other Adult Responsibilities.  
> Have a nice day ;)


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